1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to clutch release bearings of the kind used for example in automobile vehicles.
A clutch release bearing of this kind usually comprises an operating element acted upon by a control device, which in practice is a clutch fork, and a drive element which, either directly or indirectly, is retained axially in abutment with the operating element, and which, under the action of the operating element, is designed to act on the declutching device of the clutch.
For the axial abutment of the drive element, the operating element carries a transverse flange, whilst the drive element is provided with a transverse flanged edge applied axially against this flange; this transverse flanged edge is hereinafter referred to as the applied flanged edge.
The present invention relates more particularly to an arrangement in which, for the axial application of the drive element to the operating element, an axially-acting elastic washer bears at one of its peripheries on the drive element, in practice on the applied flanged edge, and has on its other periphery at least one lug which, by a transverse shoulder thereon, is held by the operating element, which itself carries for this purpose a transverse shoulder turned axially in the opposite direction.
2. Description of the Related Art
A clutch release bearing of this kind is described for example in U.S. Pat. No. 4,637,506.
In this disclosure, the elastic washer, which comprises a plurality of lugs, is fitted first to the drive element, and the transverse shoulder which each of these lugs has, in order to cooperate with the transverse shoulder of the operating element, is formed directly by the free end of the lug.
Furthermore, the operating element comprises axially, in the usual manner, a sleeve from the surface of which its flange projects radially, and the transverse shoulder which it presents to interact with the lugs of the elastic washer is part of this sleeve.
This arrangement requires, during assembly, that once the drive element engages axially on the operating element such that its flanged edge rests against the flange of the operating element, an axial force is applied to the free end of the lugs of the elastic washer, by use of an appropriate tool, to compress this free end in order to carry it, against the resilience of the elastic washer, over the corresponding transverse shoulder of the sleeve of the operating element.
The tool comprises a plurality of a small rods, each of which respectively is brought to act on the free end of a lug of the elastic washer by means of a groove provided for this purpose on the surface of the sleeve of the operating element, the ribs, which two by two delimit the corresponding grooves, jointly forming at their opposite ends the transverse shoulder of this sleeve.
It is also essential that this tool can be inserted radially between the sleeve of the operating element and the drive element.
Since this drive element comprises, in the usual way, a bearing, to one of the races of which the applied flanged edge belongs, and the other race of which itself carries a flanged edge to act on the release device of a clutch, which latter flanged edge is hereafter for convenience called the operating flanged edge, and is directed radially in all directions whilst it can have, if required, a more or less rounded profile in axial section, it may be necessary for this operating flanged edge to be directed radially towards the axis of the assembly.
It is clear that in this case, the operating flanged edge can have only a limited radial extension and, moreover, the corresponding bearing must have a large diameter, since there must be an annular space sufficient to introduce a tool during assembly between its internal periphery and the external surface of the sleeve of the operating element.
In a general way, the object of the present invention is an arrangement allowing this difficulty to be surmounted in a very simple way and facilitating the application of a tool to the lugs of the elastic washer.